Canal threats, money-laundering claims and a hotel battle: Trump’s long, weird history with Panama
Donald Trump rattled North American diplomatic relations over the weekend with a threat to retake the Panama Canal, two and a half decades after the US transferred control of the vital global trade route to Panama.
In a series of posts on Truth Social, the president-elect accused the country of “ripping off” the US.
“Our Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way,” Trump wrote. “The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous, especially knowing the extraordinary generosity that has been bestowed to Panama by the US”
Panamanian officials have pushed back against the threats, with President José Raúl Mulino saying in a Sunday statement that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zone belongs to Panama, and will continue to do so.”
The dispute over the canal is just the latest chapter of Trump drama in Panama.
Before and throughout his first term in the White House, a high-profile Trump hotel project in the country was a seemingly unending source of scandal and financial problems, ranging from a partner’s bankruptcy to money-laundering allegations to long-running legal battles.
In 2011, Trump and his business partners cut the ribbon on the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower, a 70-story, sail-shaped skyscraper that loomed large over Panama City and the Trump Organization itself.
The tower, which was first conceived way back in 2005, was Trump’s first international hotel venture and one of the tallest buildings in Latin America.
Trump capital didn’t go towards building the development itself, but the tower used the Trump name for branding, and companies controlled by the Trump Organization would manage the property, which contained a casino, hotel rooms and condos.
Even in the early days, the project seemed doomed, with one of Trump’s partners defaulting on debts soon after the tower opened and later filing for bankruptcy.
Ricardo Martinelli, president of Panama at the time of the opening, has since been convicted of money-laundering and has taken shelter inside the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama.
Subsequent investigations from news outlets alleged that one of the main brokers who sold units in the tower, Alexandre Ventura Nogueira, met repeatedly with Ivanka Trump while working on the project and did business with organized crime figures who may have used the properties for money-laundering, earning the tower the nickname “Narco-a-Lago,” a play on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
“The Trump Organization was not the owner, developer or seller of the Trump Ocean Club Panama project,” the Trump Organization said after the money-laundering allegations. “Because of its limited role, the company was not responsible for the financing of the project and had no involvement in the sale of units or the retention of any real estate brokers.”
The company told Reuters it “never had any contractual relationship or significant dealings” with Nogueira.
